In the food industry, pieces of food are often packaged together in a single pack that forms a batch. An example of such a food product is a fish fillet such as salmon and where the pack may contain e.g. four slices of fish fillet pieces. Another example is where the food product is a pork loin and where the pack may contain a certain number of pork loin pieces. In both cases the pieces typically must fulfil a pre-defined target, e.g. have a pre-defined target weight or e.g. have a fixed number of pieces that may have similar thickness.
Several devices have in the recent years been developed to automatically create such batches where no manual labour is needed. An example of such a device is disclosed in WO2008093364, where it is among other things disclosed to create batches of pork loin, where e.g. three slices of meat are put in a tray. The pork loin is put into a portioning machine that slices the pork loin into equal portions that are released onto a conveyor, where that after receiving each slice the conveyor advances slightly so that the next slice will only partly overlap the previous slice. After three slices of meat have been cut and released on the conveyor, i.e. after completing the batch, the slices are moved away and the subsequent batch begins and the process is repeated.
In case a full batch cannot be completed because the portioning machine has reached the end part of the pork loin, a partial batch is created, e.g. only two slices of meat instead of three, and this batch is moved away as a partial batch. This partial batch is then completed by adding the first meat slice (since only one meat slice was missing) from the subsequent pork loin to this partial batch.
Various means may be provided for enabling such a partial batch creation and for completing the partial batch, e.g. by using retractable conveyor means, and for enabling placing the batches into trays.
Prior art devices have in common that such partial batches are completed by adding pieces of items from the next subsequent items so as to complete the partial batch before the next batch creation starts.
This can have several disadvantages, such as the fact that the portions in the batch originate from different primal parts that may have slightly different colour and/or shape which may affect the appearance of the batch towards the customer and thus reduce the value of the batch.